Ratty's New Adventure

Today I thought I'd share just a little bit about my new life in rural Iowa. This has been a huge change for me because even though this is the area where my family comes from, I grew up in the middle of a big city. And this change has not been an easy one for me for other reasons as well.

What you see above is the area at the southern most point of my property.To the left of the picture, just on the other side of those trees is a deep ravine that makes me afraid every time I go near the edge. I'm not sure I could get out of there if I ever were to fall in. Youch!

Past the ravine is a huge cornfield. They just recently harvested all the corn, so the cornstalks are all gone now. You can see for miles through there once you get close enough to look through the trees. I'll share that view another time. For now we'll take a tour a little closer.

Before we go on I want to let you know that I have a small ad in this post. You'll know it when you see it. I'm trying these ads out for now. I'm very inexperienced in things like this, so I'm not sure how it will go yet. I've always been very wary of advertising on any of my sites, and my feelings haven't changed. I don't do this for money, and that will never be my motivation. I just wanted to let everyone know the ad was there so as not to be deceptive. Let's get back to the post!

What you see in the picture above is one of the small sheds on the property. I've never been inside this shed yet because all of the overgrown weeds. The weeded area was at one time my dad's garden, but he couldn't maintain it once he got sick. It's too late in the year for me to fixit up, so I'll have to see what I can do next spring.

This is the wood stove my dad built. It may seem crude to some of you, but this stove works better than any I've ever seen. And the stove itself is outside, so no smoke ever gets in the house, only heat. This is an old fashioned way of living, but this is the way my dad liked to live.

Keeping wood burning in the stove is a lot of work, but it's so much cheaper than any other way of heating a house. The ladder is there because I had to climb up and clean out the chimney a few times. Without my dad around, I'm having to learn about things like this as I go along. I can leave the ladder there because the outside of the stove building doesn't get hot.

The hardest part of all this work is that I can only work for about five or ten minutes at a time. The head injury I suffered only allows me that long before I begin to feel dizziness and pain. As long as I obey those rules I'm alright though.

This is the town I live in. What you see here in the picture above is pretty much it. The town is just big enough to have its own post office, but that may not last. Even our police force comes from the town up the road from us. My house is at the very south end of town, so I have plenty of room.

Since I'm so far away from most of my family, I'm not going to be able to do anything big for Thanksgiving this year, and I won't be traveling either. But if any of you choose to travel, you might want to consider cheap all inclusive holidays. It's sure nice to get away sometimes, especially if you are as alone as I am right now.

One idea that was offered to me for Thanksgiving was to go and serve dinner to the poor. I'm strongly considering doing this. It sounds like a good idea. The only problem for me is that I've been spending so much of my time alone that I'm a little nervous around a lot of people now. This makes the decision rough, so I'm going to have to really think about it.

The picture above shows you another view of the south end of my property. There will be a lot for me to clean up next spring. I'm going to try to clean things up without taking away the wild feeling of the place. My dad liked it this way, so I'll try to be faithful to what he wanted.

And finally we come towards the end of the post. This was a long one this time, wasn't it? The next one will be shorter, I'm sure. I hope this gave you just a little insight into what my life is like now. I know it was probably not as much as I could have shared, and it was kind of vague, but I've never been very good at giving information about myself. This is actually the most I've ever shown of a place I've lived.

I'll be back next time with some of the wildlife Isabella and I see when we go out here every day. I hope to begin posting more often now. Maybe these little ads will give me some added motivation. Time will tell. Talk to you next time.


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